Dont Buy A Plasma Laser Tv"s Are Comin

[Harry72]

Not this little black duck - in 1972 I paid $3500 for a Super VHS video recorder cause it was going to be the latest wiz bang thing (lucky it wasn't Beta) One bitten twice shy I guess so I resist spending a couple of thousand dollars on a piece of technology that keeps dropping in price - Only way I'll get a big screen plasma is if Foxtel gave one away with a cable subscription - now there's a unique marketing plan

Thats exactly what I ment, most sane people have spent several thousand $$$ on plasma screen's will want a few years out of them before upgrading.

[patty]

Hey Lads than some great responses I agree with a majority and I tend to agree that some people just want the latest and greatest well
and good luck to hem if they can afford it since i moved out of home over 15 years back I still have the first tv have ever owned a 48cm NEC no remote and she was second hand when i bought it at a garage sale and it was possibly at least 10 yrs old then so it would be 25 yrs at least for the last 3 yrs it has been in the shed we upgraded to some big cheap and nasty set only because it was at a good price and was twice as big as the old dog.Wellthat lasted only 2 yrs and after the nexpected passing of this set had me keen as to get a plasma since they hit the market as much as I have lusted for one of these beautiesI dont have a lazy $3k i think i will wait to see how the laser performs when it gets released and then make a decision and live with the old faithful probably for anther 15 years ha ha ha

[Smurf]

So for those of us needing to buy a TV in the very near future as I do, is there a consensus?

Plasma?
LCD?
Just get a cheap CRT from Kmart?

Looking in the catalogues, plasmas etc are getting very close to my price range now so it's not the simple "stick with the tube" decision it would have been a year or two ago.

Does anyone have comparative power consumption figures for plasma, LCD, CRT? Everything I read says plasmas use heaps, but others seem to disagree.

[manoftalent]

well one thing is for sure and not in the too distant future either.....analog tv's will need a set top box to run them as we go digital ....I think from memory the date is sometime in early 2009...I am sure someone will know it, but anyway ...high volume tv sellers will be practically giving analog tv's away prior to the event, K-mart has already started and I assume most others will too .....from what I have heard ( correct me if I am wrong)....plasma tv's are not repairable .....LCD tv's are ....I suppose its a bit like vhs and beta ....time will tell who is the most worthy in the long run.

" a fool and his money are easily parted"

[Smurf]

The digital bit doesn't worry me. Set top boxes are already common in Tas and have been for quite a while since we have a digital-only commercial channel (TDT (channel ten)) but only 2 analogue commercial channels (effectively 7 and 9 under different names).

The way I see it though, ANY TV bought today will be ridiculously obsolete within 2 years. This time in 2005 there were still brand name 76cm CRT widescreens around - you get a larger plasma for the same price today and the majors have dropped CRT's.

In all seriousness, TV's seem to have taken over from computers in terms of the "upgrade cycle". Just as the average PC has become so powerful that home users no longer need to regularly upgrade, the TV industry has taken over. It was only maybe 10 years ago that it was common to find 20 year old TV's. Now anything more than 5 years old seems to be considered ancient.

My gut feeling is LCD will win out over plasma. The plasma industry is already in the position of having to defend its product which sounds rather like the "Beta is technically superior" argument from 25 years ago.

[Harry72]

"Just as the average PC has become so powerful that home users no longer need to regularly upgrade"
Unless your a PC gamer
The latest games like Crysis will blitz any computer under $5k... with the game settings turned down!

Brought mine last year... upgraded it this year(new gpu,ps and more ram)... need whole new system next year!
I cant run games at my screens native resolution(1920x1200)even with a 512mb nvidia 7950GT and a 3.4gP4 with 2g of ddr2, it slows down to 10~15fps(unplayable)
I need a nvidia 768mb 8800GTX the fastest dual core CPU and 4g of ddr2, even that will maybe net me 20~25fps!